


Call Me Back

by Winged_Fool



Category: Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019)
Genre: (sort of), Angst, Character Study, Gen, Hurt No Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-10
Updated: 2020-09-10
Packaged: 2021-03-06 14:15:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,339
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26390263
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Winged_Fool/pseuds/Winged_Fool
Summary: An exploration of how Alex grows up and deals with his mother's absence
Relationships: Alex Manes & Alex Manes' Mother, Michael Guerin/Alex Manes
Comments: 33
Kudos: 45





	Call Me Back

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first time I've written angst just for the sake of angst in a long time, this doesn't have a happy ending because up to now in canon we don't have a happy resolution to Alex's relationship with his mother. I am, like many others in this fandom, obsessed with the Manes family dynamic. This is just my take on it. It was inspired by the song Call Me Back by Young the Giant.

Alex loves his mother. When she was around, she would encourage his more fantastical thoughts and they spent so much time laughing together. She would wrap him up in her warm embrace and whisper that she loved him. She would take them all to the reservation and while his brothers played and explored, he was content to stay by her side.

He remembers she had the saddest eyes, glassy with unshed tears, with a faraway look. But even still, she always had the sweetest words for him and gentle kisses. 

Those were the good times.

He also remembers her drooped over the counter, a half-finished wine glass limply held in her hand. He remembers when he’d crawl up next to her and try to shake her awake before Jesse got home. Sometimes he succeeded, other times he didn’t. Jesse would be furious when he found her and all the boys would hide from his rage.

They didn’t always fight, but they did have the most volatile relationship. They used to scream themselves hoarse at each other, his father clutching a beer can in his hand and his mother a glass of wine in hers. Then they’d be wrapped up in each other, embracing and apologizing. It terrified Alex.

He remembers her leaving.

It was just an average day. His father and mother had had a typical fight and he’d passed out on his recliner afterward, drunk. She had calmly packed her things while he slept, took two unopened bottles of wine and tucked them into her bag. Alex and his brothers sat numbly in the family room, watching as she started packing her life from the Manes home away. She set the bag at the front door, then came back and placed kisses on the foreheads of each of her boys, his father included.

When she reached Alex, he held onto her, “Don’t go, don’t go,” he cried. She smoothed a hand over his hair and gently extricated him from her. “I’ll be back,” she had promised and her smile had been so reassuring that he nodded and let her go. She hoisted the bag over her shoulder and left the house without a backward glance.

Saturday nights are always lonely for Alex. Before his mother left, it would just be the two of them. They would make blanket forts in the family room and she would read him fairy tales and other whimsical stories. Saturday nights his father would go out with friends and his brothers had sports, friends, and other social lives that would take them away on Saturdays.

Since she’d left, Jesse made one of the boys stay home with Alex as he’s still not old enough to be home alone. Yet, whichever brother had babysitting duty would just end up staying holed up in their room and Alex still felt lonely. And aside from that small change, Jesse has spent the time since she left pretending like nothing happened and his brothers don’t want to talk about it either.

He feels especially bereft this particular Saturday night. Flint was supposed to have stayed home, but he snuck out an hour ago and Alex is just so lonely. Her absence hangs heavily in the house and Alex just wants to hear her voice again.

So, he makes a spontaneous decision. She said she would be back after all, so he just wants to call her to see if she knows when that will be.

He goes into the kitchen and pushes one of the tall bar chairs to the counter, climbs onto it, and reaches for the landline. He dials a number he had to memorize long before she left and holds his breath as the line rings. Alex’s heart is beating wildly but it skips a beat when he hears her gentle voice, “Hello?”

“Mom!” he cries and he hears her take a shaky breath.

“Alex?” she asks, then he hears some rustling on the other end and it’s quiet for a moment. He doesn’t know what to say and he hears a door close before she speaks again, “You shouldn’t be calling, Alex,” she sounds hushed and muffled like she’s trying to hide the fact that she’s on the phone.

“What?” he asks, petulant and upset with the way she’s acting. “Why not? You said you were going to come back.”

“I know,” she replies and pauses. He hears some commotion in the background before she continues, “I’m getting better Alex.”

“Better? Ar-are you sick?”

“I was, I was very sick,” she tells him and it frightens him because he never noticed and maybe that’s why she left them, because none of them had cared. His spinning thoughts are interrupted as she continues, “Being with your father makes me sick and I need to get better.”

“What do you mean?” he clenches the phone tightly as his eyes water.

“Alex, baby,” she sighs. “I need to be away so I can heal.”

“Okay,” he says simply because he still doesn’t understand. “But you’ll be back right?”

She’s silent for a long moment so he asks again, “Mom?”

“I don’t know, sweetheart.”

Fat tears start to fall from his eyes, and, sniffling, he asks, “Why not?”

He hears someone call her name on the other line, “I have to go Alex. But...you can call here whenever okay? If I can’t answer, I’ll call you back.”

Before he can reply, the dial tone is reverberating in his ear and he hangs the phone up with a heavy heart.

He cries himself to bed that night and is angry enough at her that he takes down all the knick-knacks he’d collected from the reservation and stuffs them and the pictures of the two of them into a drawer.

He doesn’t call her again for at least three years.

It takes Jesse’s fists for Alex to work up the courage again. It’s after the first time Jesse hits him and his brothers leave him alone to cry in his bedroom that he realizes all he wants is his mother. With a wobbling hand, he dials her number and waits with bated breath until the voicemail answers. He lets out a silent sob before he’s instructed to leave a message. 

“Hi mom,” he whispers. “I-I miss you. I’m sorry it’s been so long since I called.” He wants to tell her that he wishes she were here, but the last time they’d talked she sounded so relieved that she was healing away from them and he doesn’t want to ruin that for her. “I hope you’re doing okay wherever you are. I...I wish I could hug you right now. Do you think you could come home for a minute so I could get one last hug? Just so I know you’re okay?” He takes a shuddering breath and realizes that it might sound like he’s guilting her so he changes gears, “I’m sorry we didn’t realize you were sick and I hope you’re still getting better. Um...I guess just call me back when you can okay? I love you.”

As he’s hanging up the phone, he hears a creak behind him and he turns around to find Jesse standing in the kitchen. “Who were you talking to?” he demands.

“No one,” Alex lies unconvincingly.

Jesse stalks over to him and grabs his hand and tightly squeezes it, “Who?”

“No one,” he says again, looking up at him defiantly.

Abruptly, Jesse pushes him to the ground, hard. “Don’t ever fucking call her again.” He leaves Alex laying there on the floor, but he doesn’t care because he knows that she’ll call him back. Things will be okay when he hears her voice again, he just knows it.

But she doesn’t call back the next day or the next week or even the next month. Alex tries not to hold it against her, she’s probably busy with her health. She said she would call back and he resolutely ignores the niggling thought at the back of his mind that she also said she would be back but she never did.

After Jesse’s warning, Alex knows he needs to be smart about when he calls her. He writes down everything he wants to tell her on a note and then waits until after the house is dark and silent. He creeps out of his bedroom, careful to avoid the floorboards that would give him away, and makes his way to the kitchen to cradle the landline against his ear. He tells her about the things on his note and when he runs out of things to say, he ends every message the same way, _call me back, call me back, call me back…_

The days come and go, time passes, his brothers all grow up and apart from each other. Alex eyes the phone warily and tries not to jump every time it rings in the kitchen. She never calls.

Nevertheless, it becomes a ritual. Once a month, he sneaks out with his notes and dials the number he knows by heart and listens as it _rings rings rings_ until the voicemail picks up.

For years, he keeps his Saturday nights free. It works out perfectly because even after his brothers leave, Jesse still goes out every Saturday night. Alex has always assumed he spent the night at the Wild Pony, but Mimi told him years ago that she’s never seen him at her bar. He stopped wondering and caring years ago, as long as Jesse stayed away from the house, he didn’t care.

After a particularly difficult day at school with Kyle and his crew ganging up on him, Alex lays awake in his bed counting the minutes until the house is silent. He waits another hour after he’s sure Jesse has gone to bed and crawls out of his bed to the kitchen.

“Hi mom,” he whispers, “it’s been another month. I miss you, this past month was pretty hard.” He tells her about the hard times, the bullying, Jesse, all of it, but he also shares the good times, like laughing with Liz, Maria, and Rosa.

He finishes his message the same way he always does, “Anyway, I still have the house to myself Saturday nights, I’ll wait by the phone so call me back when you can okay?” even though he knows she won’t.

After he gets the job at the Emporium, his friends want to go out on the weekends, spend the money they make on frivolous things, and just be high school students. He goes out with them, but never stays out on Saturdays past five in the evening. At first, they cajole him, try to get him to stay out with them but he just smiles at them and shakes his head. Maria gives him an understanding smile when he finally says he talks to his mom on that night. Liz and Rosa don’t get it, their own relationship with their mother so fraught, but Maria does. None of them know that he’s not actually talking to her, but he needs to keep the night free. He knows one day she’ll call and he’s told her for years that he’ll wait for her call on Saturday night.

One of the last times he leaves her a message, it’s after prom. He calls her to tell her about the fight he and Kyle got into and how mad he is at him. He hesitates because he wants to tell her about the beautiful boy who stood up for him, but he’s not sure how much she’s like Jesse. So, he doesn’t, but he’s still so angry from the fight, from the homophobia he gets everywhere, and he blurts out, “How come you’ve never called back? You said you’d be back. You said I could call you. Sometimes I hate you,” he whispers, sniffling but then freezing with icy regret the minute the words leave his mouth, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it. I just miss you so much. Um okay, just - just call me back when you can okay?”

With a trembling hand he hangs up and he knows she won’t call him back. He didn’t mean to say that, but he’s just so angry all the time. He still stays by the phone every Saturday night, even when Guerin starts staying in the tools shed. She doesn’t call back. 

The first time he misses his Saturday night vigil, it's not on purpose. It’s been weeks since he left the angry message to her and he gets swept up in Michael’s honey eyes and golden curls. He takes them to their safe place in the shed and when they get there, he realizes it's Saturday which means Jesse won't be home. He has a fleeting thought towards his mother, but it escapes him when Michael smiles gently at him and tells him "and not with someone that I've liked as much as I like you." 

In the afterglow, Alex remembers it’s Saturday again and he needs to rush away from Michael so he can take his spot in the kitchen. The sun is just starting to dip beyond the horizon when they’re about dressed again and Jesse suddenly slams into the shed. Thoughts of his mother are completely forgotten as he is forced to stand by and watch the best thing that’s happened to him since she left get destroyed.

Jesse viciously throws the hammer to the ground at Alex’s feet and snarls at him to clean this fucking mess up before he disappears. Alex tries his best to tend to Michael’s hand, but they’re both trembling too hard to do anything beyond a loose wrap around it with his UFO Emporium shirt. They cling to each other with Alex carefully, preciously cradling Michael’s hand, both weeping as dusk is engulfed in darkness.

Inside the house, the phone rings with no one to answer it. 

_"Hi Alex, I'm sorry it's taken me so long to call back. I hope I didn't miss you…"_


End file.
